“So?” Vika asked, pressing him when he didn’t reply to her. “Will ye lock me up in a cell?”
“Aye,” Angus said, deciding that he should tell her the truth, plain and simple. “I’ll either put ye in a cell or ye’ll be executed. It willnae be me own choice. I . . . I canna decide such a thing. I’ll take ye back to Knapdale, back to the castle, and then we’ll see what happens there, but ye willnae be walking away free, Vika.”
Vika drew in a sharp breath and then nodded in understanding. To Angus, she didn’t look terrified. She didn’t look as though she dreaded the fate that awaited her. Instead, she looked determined as she reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled a sgian-dubh out, bringing it to her neck.
“Vika!” Angus shouted, reaching for her but not daring to touch her in case she would slice her own throat right then and there. “What are ye doing? Stop this!”
“I willnae let ye put me back in a cell,” she said. “I willnae live like that again, never again. I’d rather die, and if ye’ll have me head when ye take me to Knapdale, then I may as weel die on me own terms.”
Angus didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know what to do, whether he should try to approach her or try to talk her out of killing herself, but he knew that he had to do something, anything to stop her.
“Ye dinnae have to die,” he told her, even though he was the one who had admitted that she could be facing death if he took her to Knapdale. He simply didn’t know what else to say to her to change her mind to keep her alive. “Ye dinnae have to do this.”
“Why do ye care?” Vika asked. She sounded genuinely curious, but Angus didn’t have an answer for her.
He didn’t know why he cared if Vika lived or died. He didn’t want to believe that there was a part of him, no matter how small, that still wanted her in the world. After everything that she had done, she deserved to die; it was something that Angus had told himself plenty of times.
And yet there he was, trying to stop her from killing herself. There was no reason behind it, no logical one, at least, not one that he could live with if he admitted it. All he knew was that there was something there, something that he couldn’t ignore. Something was telling him to stop her, and he couldn’t help but listen to that little voice in his head.
“I . . . I dinnae ken,” he said. “All I ken is that ye shouldnae kill yerself. Put that blade down, Vika.”
Angus reached out for her, silently asking for the knife, but Vika huffed out a laugh and shook her head. He could see it in her face that she had already made up her mind. There was that determined set of her jaw, her lips pursed into a thin line, a finality in her gaze that told him that there was no saving her from herself.
“I canna go back,” Vika whispered, eyes wide and fearful, perhaps imagining what her life would be in a cell under the castle, Angus thought. “I canna go back, and ye canna make me.”
Even as she spoke, Angus could see that that there was a hint of hesitation there, as she tried to force herself to cut her own throat. He looked at her, a pleading look in his eyes as he quietly begged her to give him the blade, but she only shook her head again, refusing.
She pressed the blade harder against her neck, enough to draw a drop of blood, and she winced at the pain, but then she seemed more determined than ever before. Angus couldn’t save her. He couldn’t do anything to stop her.
“One more thing. I have more secrets than ye ken, Angus,” she said. “I have many more secrets than ye’ll ever ken.”
It was the last thing that Vika said before she pressed the blade against her skin and cut her throat open in one swift, decisive move. In a single moment, Angus was suddenly drenched in Vika’s blood as it flowed out of her like a fountain, pouring itself over him from head to toe.
He stumbled backward, eyes wide in shock as his heart beat fast in his chest, jackrabbiting in his ribcage.
“Nay . . . nay, nay, nay,” he whispered to himself, shaking his head as Vika’s body hit the ground with a dull thud. “Vika, what have ye done?”
She was still alive, Angus noticed, her hand reaching for her neck and wrapping tightly around it in an attempt to stop the blood. It wouldn’t save her, Angus knew, but it told him that perhaps she regretted what she had done.
She tried to speak, but no words were coming out of her mouth, just a breathy, quiet sound that Angus couldn’t decipher. She, too, seemed to realize that she couldn’t speak, so she simply smiled at him, and then she slowly removed her hand from her neck, allowing her wound to bleed out without another word.
It took her only seconds to draw in one last, rattling breath, and then she was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Donal was surveying the damage that had been done to his and Angus’ troops while Angus was in the tent, confronting Hamish. He didn’t want to be involved with whatever was happening between the other two men, as he knew that Angus could beat Hamish without his help, and the last thing that he wanted was to intervene in a battle that wasn’t his.
He knew that Angus wanted to deal with Hamish himself. He was happy to give him the space that he needed to do so.
Their own fight, outside of the tent, was long over, his and Angus’ troops overpowering Hamish’ men, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t casualties. The battlefield was soaked in blood, Keith, Cameron, and MacMillan alike, and as Donal walked around the grounds, he couldn’t help but feel sick to his stomach at the sight of dead soldiers lying there.
He wanted an explanation. He wanted a reason for all that bloodshed, though he doubted that he would get one from Hamish, seeing as he would be dead soon, too. Still, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to make peace with what had happened there unless he had a good enough reason.
He needed something different than simply the fact that Hamish wanted to take over the Keith clan after Laird Keith’s death, and had gone insane in the process. He needed something that would justify the pain that the widows of those men would feel, he needed something that would assure him their lives hadn’t gone to waste, that the deaths themselves weren’t a waste.
“How many men did we lose?” Donal asked one of his men, Diarmad, who was walking beside him and checking for any survivors that they may have missed, men who were so wounded that they could barely speak up to signal that they were alive.
“So far, m’lord?” Diarmad asked. “No less than two dozen between the two clans. Clan MacMillan suffered the most losses, though, it would seem.”
Two dozen men. Two dozen lives lost because of Hamish and his illusions of grandeur, and there was nothing that Donal could do to bring them back.
Donal must have looked particularly saddened by the numbers, as Diarmad placed a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to stop walking and instead look at him.
“M’lord . . . we won,” Diarmad said. “There is nay denying that we lost many good men, but we won. Hamish willnae terrorize another village, he willnae kill anyone else, nor will his men. We won.”
“I’m nae worried about Hamish,” Donal said with a sigh, as he brought a hand up to scratch at the back of his head, looking around him once more at the catastrophe that they had all spread. “I ken that he is a dead man. Even if Angus has nae killed him yet, I ken that he will. What I’m worried about is the next Hamish, the next man who will try to do the verra same thing that he did. That is what I am worried about.”
“Weel . . . if that ever happens, we are all ready to fight again,” Diarmad said.
Donal didn’t know how to tell him that he didn’t want them fighting anyone. Certainly, battles and wars were sometimes unavoidable, especially when men like Hamish were involved, but he hated leading his men to battle, knowing that some of them would meet their end.
Before Donal could say anything else, though, he heard a faint whisper from behind him, and when he looked at Diarmad, the man’s face told him that he had heard the same thing.
The two of them looked for the wounded soldier who had managed to speak up,
and soon Donal realized that it was none other than Euan, one of Angus’ most trusted men.
Euan was lying on the ground, his shirt and jacket soaked in blood from the wound in his stomach, which he was trying to plug with a torn off sleeve. His efforts were to no avail, though, as the sleeve was already just as crimson as the rest of the fabric around it, soaked and useless.
Donal and Diarmad both knelt by his side, Donal’s hands roaming over him, uncertain, yet searching for a way to fix him, to save him.
“Dinnae ye dare to die, Euan,” Donal said, and Euan managed to laugh, just a little, though it sounded more like a cough rather than anything else. Donal could see that he was weak and on the verge of death, though he didn’t seem to be in any pain; not anymore, at least, his body protecting him from it by shutting down. “I mean it, lad. If ye die, who will stop Angus from being foolish, hmm? Ye must live, do ye hear me? Ye must live.”
“Tell him . . .” Euan said, but before he could finish his sentence, he began to cough, each of his coughs causing another and another until his entire body was shaking with it. When he finally calmed down, he immediately tried to speak again. “Tell him it’s an honor to have fought with him. And tell him . . . tell him I said to nae be a fool.”
“Tell him yerself, lad,” Donal said, practically begging Euan.
Just as his own hand settled on top of Euan’s wound, though, he felt him go slack, and when he looked at him, his eyes were glazed over and wide open, his mouth slack as he took his last breath.
Donal cursed under his breath. He could hardly draw any air in his lungs as he looked at Euan’s body, at the man’s blood on his own hands, dark red and viscous, sticky with guilt and grief.
With a shaky hand, he reached up and closed Euan’s eyes before he stood, leaving Diarmad and the rest of the men to deal with him and the rest of the corpses. He could see that some men had already taken it upon themselves to dig up graves for the fallen, but Donal simply couldn’t leave them there, no matter how much of a hassle it would be to take them all back to Knapdale.
Besides, something told him that Angus would agree.
“Stop!” he told the men, before turning to address all of them. “We’ll take the men with us, lads . . . we’ll take them to Knapdale, and we will bury them there, with all the honors that they deserve.”
There was a murmur of agreement and understanding around Donal, and he nodded, satisfied that everyone seemed to agree with him.
He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t do at least that one last simple act of kindness for those who had given their lives that day.
Euan, like many more of the men, was young. He had had his entire life ahead of him, and Donal was certain that it would have been a good life. He had been a kind man, if a little hot-headed and overconfident, and he had been a great strategist and warrior.
Donal could hardly believe he had met such an end.
He could only imagine Angus’ own grief once he would find out how many of his own men had died, including Euan. He decided that he should be the one to break the news to him before anyone else could. So once he made sure that all the survivors were being given the care that they needed and the bodies of the fallen were being loaded into carts and onto horses—which his men had brought back from where they had left them before the ambush—he made his way towards the last tent that was still standing, that of Hamish.
Once he approached the tent, it surprised him to notice that he couldn’t hear anything from the inside. Carefully, he pulled the fabric aside and took a peek, only to not believe his own eyes when he saw who was there.
“Angus . . .” he said in a soft tone, when he saw that he was kneeling next to Vika’s body, both of them bloody, drenched to the bone. “Are ye alright? Is any of this blood yers?”
His first instinct was always to make sure that Angus was unharmed. When the other man glanced down at himself, at his crimson-painted hands as though he wasn’t quite certain if the blood was his or not, Donal couldn’t help but hold his breath, terrified as he thought about the worst possible outcome.
“Nay,” Angus said, and finally, Donal could exhale in relief. He rushed to him, noticing that Hamish was just as dead as Vika, lying on his back on the ground, and he knelt next to him, over Vika’s body.
“What was she doing here?” Donal asked. “What . . . why is she here, Angus?”
“She was with Hamish,” Angus said, and he sounded shaken, as though the events that had taken place in that tent had left their mark on him. “Remember when ye told me that she escaped? Weel . . . it seems like she found her way to Hamish. She’s the reason for all this, Donal. She is the one who convinced Hamish to do what he did, telling him that it was the only way to prove himself and become the next Laird of the Keith clan. She did all this.”
If Vika hadn’t been dead already, Donal could have sworn that he would kill her himself. He had been searching for a reason, for any reason better than Hamish’s own foolishness and ambition, but what Angus had just told him wasn’t any better.
The deaths of two dozen men were all because of Vika. Somehow, even after Angus had gotten rid of her, doing his best to ensure that she could never hurt anyone again, she had managed to weasel her way out of the monastery, only to spread chaos all around her.
It wasn’t a good enough reason for Donal.
There was something else, though, at the front of his mind, something that concerned him, and he couldn’t simply ignore it.
“Weel . . . what are ye doing here?” he asked Angus. “Why are ye sitting next to her? Come, Angus . . . yer men need ye.”
The look that Angus gave him was one that Donal had never seen before on the other man. A part of him was worried that he was finally broken, that Vika had accomplished what she had been after for so long.
“She killed herself, Donal,” Angus told him. “After I killed Hamish, she . . .”
“Dinnae tell me that she killed herself because she couldnae live without him,” Donal scoffed, shaking his head. That didn’t sound like the Vika that he knew.
“Nay,” Angus said, shaking his head. “Nay, it wasnae that. She told me that she couldnae live imprisoned again, and she killed herself. I saw her . . . I saw her cut her own throat.”
It must have been a terrible sight, Donal thought. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to see someone else take their own life, but he knew what it was like to find the body of someone who had, and he knew just how terrible that was.
As far as he was concerned, though, Vika had deserved it. It was only a fitting end for her, after what she had done to his brother, like a circle that was finally complete.
Angus didn’t seem to think so, though, and the fact that he was looking at her body as though he was mourning for her made Donal’s blood boil in his veins with anger. Surely, after everything that Vika had done, especially to Angus himself, the man couldn’t possibly feel sorry for her.
“What does it matter, Angus?” he asked him. “She’s dead. Gone. Much like the many men out there, yer men and mine. They are all lying dead on the ground because of her, and yer here, mourning for her? Who cares if she’s dead? Who cares if she took her own life? It’s what she deserved.”
Donal could see that Angus didn’t like the way that he had spoken to him. The other man glared at him, hands curling up into fists. “She was a person, too, ye ken,” he said. “She wasnae innocent by any means, but she was a human.”
“Hardly,” Donal snarled. “She was hardly a human after everything that she did. She was a monster, Angus. Dinnae ye treat her as anything other than a monster.”
“I ken verra weel what she was, Donal,” Angus said, voice low and threatening. “I dinnae need ye to tell me what she was or what she has done.”
“I’ll tell ye anyway,” Donal said, already too angry to control himself. “She killed me brother. She was the reason for his death. She almost made ye kill me. She killed countless other men, and do ye ken who else she killed? S
he killed Cormag.”
“Nay,” Angus said, shaking his head. “She didnae kill Cormag. She had nae a clue that Cormag was dead; she didnae ken that Hamish killed him.”
“She lied to ye!” Donal shouted, unable to control himself anymore. He could feel the heat rising in his face, and he knew that he was turning red rapidly, but he didn’t care. He wanted Angus to see how angry he was, hoping that the man would see sense. “I thought ye’d be furious at her, too. I thought ye’d finally see her for the snake that she is, but the moment ye laid yer eyes upon her, ye turned into that wee lad who loved her so dearly.”
Donal couldn’t understand how Angus could be mourning by her side. He couldn’t understand how he didn’t simply spit onto her dead body and walk out of there, never laying eyes upon her again. That was what he would do; after all, it was what he was looking forward to before he had walked in there and had seen Angus kneeling next to her.
Highlander’s Veiled Bride: Scottish Medieval Highlander Romance (Highland Seductresses Book 2) Page 21
